Three Fates

For time immemorial, the goddesses of fate have decided which human threads will shine and which will be cut short. But even the fates have off days. Fate Delivers a Prince by Andrew Grey: Finding love shouldn’t be that difficult for a diplomat’s son, except Cheyenne is part of a grand tradition of werewolves, and a werewolf with a skin condition needs more help than most mortals. When Chay meets the prince of his dreams, it takes Clotho’s intervention to keep him from letting go. Jump by Mary Calmes: When two lovers die, their threads of life are collected instead of scattered, as one of them was the brother of a god. Can the fates reunite two lovers whose threads should have twined together for eternity? Or will Cassidy allow Raza’s interest to pass his pale, mortal self by? Believed You Were Lucky by Amy Lane: The gods’ meddling isn’t always welcome. It’s given Leif good luck but poor fortune, and Hacon a family curse he’s lived in fear of all his life. But when Leif’s good luck saves Hake’s life, Hake has to reevaluate everything he’s ever believed about luck, life, and love.

Fates Deliver A Prince by Andrew Grey

Chapter One

THEY were as old as time, three ageless sisters of neither beauty nor ugliness; they just were. Created by the gods at the beginning of the world, they existed at the center of the Earth, far away from the life-forms they controlled. These three women, these sisters, were the Fates. They existed in their own portion of the world, controlling it and yet completely separate from it. In their cave, for lack of a better way to describe it, for they knew neither day nor night, these sisters did their work, never tiring and always vigilant.

It was one sister’s job to call the names, one watched the wheels and called the reading, and the final recorded the fate in the book of time.

“Sisters,” the oldest one said. She was older only because she had been created a millisecond before the others. “It’s time to switch.” The others nodded, and without missing a beat, they shifted position with grace and speed, as they’d done once a century ever since the first thinking being appeared on the planet.

They called each other “sister,” their actual names long unused. To say them they would subject themselves to the randomness of the wheels they alone controlled. Those very wheels lined the walls of their cave, floor to ceiling, spinning constantly unless a name was called.

“Urnst Hunblotter!” the middle sister called in a level voice.

Then, and only then, would the wheels stop just long enough to be read before whirling again. Each wheel had thousands of possibilities, and not every wheel stopped for every name. Some were lucky and the wheel of disease continued spinning; others weren’t. Sometimes the wheel of wisdom hit the jackpot, and other times it never…